As much as we love gathering as a whole for corporate worship, there is something unique about an intimate gathering around a living room, a small classroom, or a dining room table that forces us to think differently than when we do in a large room for worship. As a church, we understand that small groups deliver maximum individual participation.

During this pandemic where we have not been able to gather as freely in large groups for corporate worship and study, we have watched and experienced the New Testament model of the church play out within our small groups. Giving the men and women the ability to meet in small groups has been a lifeline to many.

Here are a few of the things we have observed during this season that we are incredibly thankful for.

1. Our small groups have held together—and some even grew.
2. Men and women have remained connected and studying God’s Word together.
3. The Word of God continues to stabilize the people through these uncertain times.
4. The support system within these groups remained steady and secure.

We want to make our small groups more accessible to more of our congregation since we have seen how important small group communities are. To do this, we, as a church, are expanding our men’s, women’s, couples, and student groups and bringing them together as Harvest Groups.

The primary goal is to allow more of our body to experience the discipleship and spiritual growth that happens best in small group communities.

Our Harvest Groups will continue to offer ministry to and for men, women, couples, youth, and children. The format of how we meet each week is expanding to offer more opportunities for our church family to get connected in a group—not everyone could meet on the days we chose for Bible study! But our commitment to studying God’s Word together in small groups will always remain the same.

The new format of Harvest Groups is in effort to reach more people. In doing that, we are going to encourage our groups to meet at the time, day, and location that works best for them. In that, we will not have our weekly traditional service with teaching and worship corporately, but all branches of Harvest Groups will be hosting semi-regular events that allow the men and women to gather corporately for worship and teaching.

Yes and no. Harvest groups will meet in homes, coffee shops, online via Zoom, and at our church campuses on various days/times. This is great news for those people that may be busy on a specific night of the week. Regardless of your schedule, we have a group meeting on a day and time just right for you!

Absolutely! The principles and priority of studying God’s Word and meeting together in our small groups will not be changing. The leader will choose the curriculum for the group. Wow, different right? Essentially what this means is we will have two variations of Bible Study for our leaders to choose from. Here is a brief description of what those two variations are.

1. Sermon Discussion—these are questions based on Pastor Greg’s Sunday message. (These are what our current “small/community groups” are utilizing, and you can check the format out on our website if you are interested in what they look like!)
2. Bible Study—these are Bible study lessons going through a particular book of the Bible

Both of these products are produced by Lifeway, a trusted small group ministry partner for churches all across the nation.

We will not have live teachings and corporate worship before group time each week. Our desire is to allow you as much time as possible to be in group time and dive into God’s word together. We are increasing the amount of online resources available for you on-demand at harvest.church, which will include various forms of teachings from your favorite Harvest teachers. We will also hold semi-regular events at our church that will allow for you to have live teachings and extended times of worship.

We realize that childcare is a crucial part to allowing you to meet with your group. For that reason, we will offer childcare a couple of nights each week at our campuses. For a list of groups that have childcare available, please visit our groups section.

Our Harvest Groups will launch the last week of September with a study in the book of Mark! This will coincide with Pastor Greg’s teaching series through the Gospel of Mark.

Groups will meet either weekly or every other week for about 1 hour. You can choose a group that meets at the frequency that works best for you when you sign up. Our groups generally take a break during holidays and may meet less often during the summer, but your group leader and group can decide if you want to meet during holidays and summer months.

Your group leader will give you the exact details of when and where your group will be meeting. When you meet, the bulk of the time will be talking through the study questions, but there will always be time to get to know each other and pray together.

If you’re interested in serving with Harvest Groups, there are opportunities to assist and host groups. Submit an interest form.